


Sleep

by WithLoweredVoices



Series: Palace [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Brother dynamics, F/M, Family Issues, Friendship, Hurt, Johnlock - Freeform, Kid Sherlock, Love, M/M, Memories, Mind Palace, Non-established Johnlock, PTSD, Sherlock in hiding, Sherlock's experiments, Teachers, non-established relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-08
Updated: 2012-07-08
Packaged: 2017-11-09 10:33:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/454498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WithLoweredVoices/pseuds/WithLoweredVoices
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Sometimes you can love a person, and they can love you back, but you can never really be together.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleep

He talked in his sleep when he was dreaming. When he had nightmares, however, he was silent, sometimes barely breathing. His right fist clenched and unclenched as his legs entangled in the covers. The streetlight filtered through his windows, forming harsh shapes on his body. His lips moved in the beginning of names.

_Get behind me._  
Gunfire rattled on the insides of the soldier's head.

.

The room of Monsters is five steps away from the room of Regrets.

'Sherlock, why is there a decapitated frog next to the cheese?' John asked mildly, sitting opposite me with his tea. His face was freshly shaved, his clothing almost presentable, and there was a nervous sort of indention to the right of his mouth. There was a spot of liquid next to his sleeve. The top pocket of his jacket was slightly open, revealing the discount coupon to the Thai restaurant.

_Perfume, freshly sprayed, expensive but strong. A small taster present. Christmas._

'Don't try too hard to impress her, or she'll notice,' I advised him, inspecting a particularly interesting article about a limb missing a corpse. It was often the other way around. Kidnapping serial killers, they proved so fascinating. 'And it's an experiment,' I added as an afterthought. 'Don't touch it.'

John regarded me with something that was neither admiration or dismay, perhaps closer to exasperation. He sipped his tea, shaking his head and murmuring something too incoherent for me to understand or to remember. Both were the same, in this room. 'Look, just remove it, alright?' John smiled wryly. 'For Mrs. Hudson's sake.'

Our breakfast - his, he ate, I watched my coffee cool and counted the minutes it took for a ring to form on the tablecloth - passed in silence. It often did, on the quiet days without any pressing case or surprise raid from Lestrade. The clock hands moved sternly into position, and with military promptness stood and straightened his shirt.

'Right,' he announced, 'I'm off.'

Staring at the tablecloth, I merely hummed in reply. At that time, my experiment took priority over John's relationship status, or his emotional place. Only, the sharp rapping urged me to look up. I obeyed. He lingered in the arch where the last line of vision between us would be absolutely eliminated, his eyes reaching towards me. His tongue traced his lower lip. 'Why don't you stop me?' he questioned calmly, patiently.

My ribs cracked, one by one.

_Blunt force. The handle of a fireaxe. Some post-mortem. Passion, anger, either or._

'I want to,' I mouthed.

His lips pulled upwards slowly, like a crack appearing on the great icy covering of a winter lake. 'I want you to,' he revealed, and left.

_Human sentiment is irrelevant._

.

'Can't you  _see_  what's happening here?' I roared at John, smashing the side of my palm down on the desk. Fury had never been so prominent in my veins, laced with thick frustration. There were many things that I could afford to lose, but John was not one of these things. I breathed on his admiration, on his trust, on his solid presence beside me to anchor me down. Moriarty wanted to steal even this from me, to make me as inhuman as he was.  
  


'I know you're for real,' came the voice, soft and angry. Defiant that I have doubted him. Believing that I could trust him as he had always trusted me, that there was a place of equilibrium in our relationship. 'I know you're afraid,' he added. These were not his words, but now they were. 'I know you're afraid, Sherlock, but you shouldn't be. I'll protect you.'

I remembered the grim look in his eye as he had joined me after the incident with the cabbie, the stiffness in his shoulders. Every single time he pulled the trigger, it was not with a rush of emotion, or with anger, or even the scratching desire to injure, destroy, and completely crush a man's will to exist. It was a swift, terrible decision, and he lived and died with these decisions. John had barely known me then. What would he do for me now?

'Not this time,' I responded, shaking my head. 'This time it has to happen this way.'

John's lips thinned and whitened. 'You will kill me,' he warned. Sirens began to illuminate the side of his face, warning Lestrade's arrival. The events were out of joint, but they continued nonetheless. 'You will completely kill me. You know that, don't you, you prick?' Even the most obscene thing he said was dipped in warmth.

'John,' I pronounced.

He closed his eyes, drawing his hand over his face as though he would never allow me to see the emotions. I knew them well.

I did not know what parts of me were not filled with parts of him.

'Sherlock,' he whispered. 'Stop this. Just stop it. Don't be - ' a quick inhalation of air, sharp and painful and crude and awful - 'dead.'

.

The Classroom was the place to go, when in doubt.

She was wearing owls in her ears, long, golden owls with pointed beaks and hollow eyes that stared. A matching necklace hung around Her neck. Her nailpolish was chipped on Her forefinger and thumb. As She moved Her arm, the light revealed a little circular scab.

'What's wrong?' She inquired softly, carefully lilting her voice.

'Nothing,' I replied automatically, simply because there was very little that had altered from my usual existence. 

She raised her eyebrows disbelievingly. 'Sherlock,' she sighed reproachfully, 'don't think I don't see. You used to smile at me. Now you barely look at me.'

I lowered my eyes, guilty for being exposed for performing behaviour that had earned me the distaste of my classmates. Guilt transformed into a quick moment of retaliation. 'How long have you been seeing Mycroft?' I demanded. I had seen their eyes meet quickly over my head. There had been colour in Her cheeks, and a quick bob of Mycroft's adam's apple.

Her eyes widened, but then Her shoulders relaxed as She closed Her eyes. 'Oh, Sherlock,' She said quietly. 'Sometimes you can love a person, and they can love you back, but you can never really be together.'

.

In the room of the Dead and Departed Mycroft's face was never closed with indifference, or cold contempt. He was caging his sorrow, forcing it into submission. He was transforming himself into something steely, dangerous, methodological and highly useful to the country. Nonetheless, Mycroft shut out his family and his brother, choosing the weaker way. He chose to run instead of pursue. He removed his vital organs and kept them in a jar above his reserved place in the room of People Who Matter But Must Never Be Mentioned, so that he might rejoin his emotions when he died.

'Human sentiment is irrelevant,' he whispered, his lip curling with sorrow.

.

For the first time in weeks, the lock to the door swung open, and the room of Good Things opened. The walls were covered in newspaper clippings, the ceiling painted to mirror a sky. That was the sky that shone over the very first spring morning that I could remember, when Mummy smiled and Mycroft smiled back at her with a resonance that reached his eyes. 

'So who's the alien serial killer this time?' John asked, sitting to my right. His hair was mussed from unstable sleep, and his eyes were haunted by the reflection of old wars. The television screen flickered with false characters swathed in terrible makeup and crashing effects, explosions that did not quite sink well into the movement of shadows. These were the details. The plotline itself was impressive, and it was one of the few reasons that I allowed myself to watch the show. Another reason was simply that John found the dialogue amusing, and when John was amused there would be a section of peace in my middle.  
  


'None of them,' I replied steadily. 'This time it's the humans to blame.'

John wrinkled his brow, shifting his gaze to me. A sweeping breeze ran through the room, rustling the newspaper clippings like leaves in a storm. 

_Frangipani soap. Perfume, old, from an ex-husband visiting from Paris._

'How did you figure that out?' he demanded, the usual tone of amazement lacing his voice. He rubbed the back of his neck. There was a thin layer of stubble on his chin that had been allowed to grow after one of the long list of women had left him, yet again. Every time they left him, John would inform me with a strangely accusing tone in his voice, as though I were to blame for his relationship failures. 

'I've watched this episode before,' I replied, smirking with self-satisfaction. 

'Of course you have,' John laughed. He moved deeper into the couch, sliding his arms outwards on the back. Any closer and he could have touched me, but he did not. There were many motions we could have carried out, but did not. 'Do you ever sleep?' he asked mildly, narrowing his eyes.

I busied myself with the program and chose not to answer him. He knew the answer anyways. My routine was imprinted on the insides of his skull. 'Sometimes,' I murmured, 'I watch you sleep.'

John did not turn to look at the television, although he was meant to, and he turned away in the original memory but not in this room. In this room, Good Things were allowed to happen. 'Why don't you wake me up?' he pressed softly. He shifted closer, his fingertips brushing against my shoulder. This happened, in the world that really existed. I had not noticed this, focusing my attention on the finale to the television show so that I might not have to suffer the consequences of human contact. 

_Human sentiment is irrelevant._

'I wish I could,' I told him.

He smiled thinly, painfully. 'Now it's too late, isn't it?' he said bitterly. 'There's no more time for us.'

'There will be,' I whispered. I could have reached up to touch his hand, but I did not. 'Wait for me, John. Wait for me.'

 

 


End file.
